This is a silly post, I warn you ahead of time. Fact is, I do most of my shopping at the Thrift store in the US. (I didn’t get to go this year so I didn’t get to change my entire wardrobe and will have to continue wearing my last-year’s Thrift offering…luckily it includes a soft gray sweater that goes with anything.)

Last year I went several times to the Thrift and bought far more than one suitcase could hold. So, I went back to the Thrift and found another suitcase. Choices at the Thrift, as you know, are limited. There were two – one was a very small toilet bag and the other was a HUGE suitcase on wheels. It was the size of an oil barrel, square, and was made of a sort of ‘faux tapestry’ material in green, magenta, and black. Hideous is the word that comes to mind, but at the time I was only thinking ‘Lots of Space’ and plunked down five dollars for the suitcase. I wheeled it outside to the car and got my first shock. It BARELY fit into the trunk. I looked closer at the monster. It was a lot bigger than I’d thought. I got in the car, and my mother and daughter looked at me and said, “Why did you get such a huge suitcase? It’s monstrous!”
I leaned back in my seat and shrugged. “I needed something to hold all our stuff,” I said.
“Can we call it Igor?” My daughter giggled, but the name stuck.
We drove around to the grocery store and bought our groceries – and we couldn’t put them in the trunk because of Igor. We put them in the backseat – and I started to have doubts about Igor. I imagined myself pulling him through the airport – he was nearly as tall as my ten year old daughter. He would weigh three tons. He had wheels, but they were wobbly. And once full of clothes – he would weigh…three tons. Three tons. The words were a death knell for Igor. I turned to my mother and said, “We have to take Igor back to the store. He’s too big.”
My mother bit her lip then said, “you mean, he doesn’t fit in with the family?”
My daughter howled with laughter at that one.
“No, he just doesn’t fit in.” I was giggling too at this point. “But I’ll miss him.”
“We will all miss Igor,” my daughter said.
“Actually, he’s hard to miss,” my mother said.
Visions of me dragging the monster along the hallway, crowding people to the side, squashing anyone in their way assailed me. Yes, Igor had to go.
We dropped him off at the Thrift. They gave me a gift certificate for five dollars. We went to another store and bought a normal-sized red duffle bag with two small wheels at one end and a big ‘W’ on the side.
We called this one Mr. Wilson. On his first trip he got a rip in the wheelie end and now sports a large patch of silver duct tape.
He’s still with us. It makes people turn and stare at the baggage claim when he pops out of the chute and my daughter yells “There goes Mr. Wilson with the tape on his butt! Get him quick!”

But we still think of Igor now and then…